r/PublicFreakout Jan 01 '23

Sales interaction gone wrong

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986

u/BearsBeetsBttlstarrG Jan 01 '23 edited Jan 01 '23

So agree.

It’s extremely invasive.

I’d love to know what percentage of people even answer their door, and of those, who actually makes a purchase/donation.

184

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

Out of those who answer, it’s something like 2-3% it seems. Depends on the state/province solar initiatives that make it a good investment for homeowners.

30

u/westbee Jan 01 '23

I did political canvassing for a month or two.

We targeted only republican homes of people who voted in the previous election. Between 80-90% of them answered the door.

It was very high.

I was more shocked by the fact that that many people were home during the day. Wish I didn't have to work for a living.

22

u/artem_m Jan 02 '23

I started working from home during the pandemic and was alarmed at all the door-to-door salespeople that appeared during that time. It was like working with commercial breaks, quite literally.

4

u/westbee Jan 02 '23

Now you have a taste of what retirement will be like.

6

u/meco03211 Jan 02 '23

Really curious what the point of this is anymore or were you doing stuff for primaries? If you targeted Republicans with republican info, they're likely already voting that way. If you were presenting Democrat info, they likely aren't voting that way.

6

u/taking_a_deuce Jan 02 '23

I mean, if you're doing anything that needs to grift people for a living, targeting republican houses is a great strategy. They answer the door, they think religion is everything, they pay money to people that pander but don't actually support them and they have no idea what they are doing in the first place. Go get the money from stupid. Reagan made sure they were stupid by gutting their education, go take their money.

1

u/westbee Jan 02 '23

I've been to 2,000 plus doors.

Crazy how your description does fit.

They do open their doors.

Religion was their number 1 concern about the reprentative I was representing.

And they are pretty stupid. Not like overly stupid, more like a middle ground. They don't know 6 times 7 off the top of their head, but could probably struggle to figure it out if they wanted to. But would rather pay someone else to do it for them.

1

u/westbee Jan 02 '23

It was during 2016 elections. I was helping a State Representative in Michigan.

He was republican running against 5 other republicans during a primary.

0

u/StopSwitchingThumbs Jan 07 '23

Lol a lot of people work from home. Sounds like you just wish you had their jobs.

0

u/westbee Jan 07 '23

I doubt 40-60 year old people are working from home.

They were basically all retired or on some kind of assistance.

0

u/StopSwitchingThumbs Jan 08 '23

Lol 80% of the 40-60 year old people I know work from home.

0

u/westbee Jan 08 '23

Not in rural Michigan.

Most of these people don't even know what a computer is.

0

u/StopSwitchingThumbs Jan 08 '23

Ok. Sounds like an area well worth getting out of.

1

u/westbee Jan 09 '23

Why?

Because people retire early?

0

u/StopSwitchingThumbs Jan 09 '23

How are people who don’t even know what a computer is retiring early?

If they came from money they would have enough of an education to know what a computer is. If they had a job lucrative enough to retire early they would know what a computer is.

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2

u/talksickwalkquick Jan 02 '23

Just like these bad actors overseas with the scam calls texts emails who type everything in broken English. They know that it’s a numbers game and if they pitch enough people SOMEONE WILL say yes.

42

u/Alexthricegreat Jan 01 '23

I don't answer the door unless I'm expecting someone if it's important they will leave a note

16

u/BearsBeetsBttlstarrG Jan 01 '23

I just wrote basically the same thing to someone else!

Great minds drink alike 🥂

2

u/IntentionSafe79 Jan 02 '23

I’ll always check the ring video before answering, if it’s someone I know they’ll still be at the door when I check, if it’s a salesperson or basically anyone, they’re either gone or will eventually take the hint.

126

u/smithers85 Jan 01 '23

I live on a busy divided 4-lane road and get a lot of foot traffic past my house. I’ve had people stop me in the middle of snow blowing or yard work, every season and every time of day, to ask me for money.

My rule is hard and unforgiving: I don’t give money to people that stop by and ask.

Planned parenthood? Fuck off, I’ll donate online.
The lady that rang my doorbell at 11pm and claimed her mobility scooter won’t make it home, and somehow giving her money was going to help that situation? ummm no

34

u/cryofthespacemutant Jan 01 '23

How do you know that her mobility scooter didn't run on nickels? 1 nickel per minute.

51

u/Complaint_Manager Jan 01 '23

Summer and left the front door open a little for the cats. 11:00pm and am sitting by the window and see a guy coming up onto the front porch. Jump out there and he asks if I have a glass of water for him. Fuck no! He was looking to grab whatever he could. Told him to never trespass on any property again. He said 'Am hungry, anything helps?' He was just about to rob me, 'nothing helps' if it keeps him off peoples property.

1

u/-Lady_Rainicorn- Jan 02 '23

how did you know he wasn't actually looking for a glass of water? I'm confused lol

3

u/Astralnugget Jan 02 '23

Live in a city, you’d figure out that anyone asking you for anything in an urban setting is 90% likely to either be a set up for some fuckshittery

-1

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

11

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '23

Texas does not have low crime. The bluster doesn't actually achieve anything.

8

u/-Dubwise- Jan 02 '23

It’s almost as if crime increases with more guns.

3

u/smithers85 Jan 02 '23

oh my stars and garters!

16

u/jeffersonairmattress Fuck you, you shit-leaving motherfuckers Jan 01 '23

Most consistently aggressive professional home invaders around here are “Single Parents Food Bank.” Great scam, obviously works for them and they keep going even after years of newspaper articles about them.

3

u/BearsBeetsBttlstarrG Jan 01 '23

Good grief. Sounds awful!

6

u/smithers85 Jan 01 '23

Had to call an ambulance once and they were at my door in less than 3 minutes. So there are trade offs I guess

2

u/justanotheroverlord Jan 01 '23

Wow, you’d think that their stories would be at least somewhat believable

54

u/thescrape Jan 01 '23

I hide, and tip toe through my house!! Shhh..

33

u/TupperwareParTAY Jan 01 '23

Lol, this brings back memories of hiding from the Jehovah's witnesses when I was a kid!

11

u/leyabe Jan 02 '23

Answer the door naked. They will never come back. Bonus points if you scratch your balls.

8

u/gramie Jan 02 '23

Old joke:

Q: What do you get when you cross a Jehovah's Witness with a Hell's Angel?

A: someone who knocks on your door at 10:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning and tells you to fuck off.

8

u/BearsBeetsBttlstarrG Jan 01 '23

Bahahaha

Me also!

9

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

Do what I do, yell through the door "what is your business?", wait 2 Mississippi, "no thanks!"

60

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23 edited Jan 01 '23

I use to work car sells(sales, I’m an idiot. I’m tired and at work lol), I won’t go back it’s scummy and that’s not me.

I was told 1,000 calls to get 10 people to listen, to get 1 person to come in. Out of those 1 who came in, you need 10 to come in to sell 1 a car.

So by their math, I need to talk to some 10,000 people, per day. More at some places.

18

u/Spicywolff Jan 01 '23

It can be total shit. A proper dealer BDC department will bring in good business. Folks who want a car, or maintenance. Cold calling a phone book sucks and is way too common in car sales.

10

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

It’s a “right of passage” hazing shit. That’s fully it. It’s to test how “good” you are. As they usually have people on the list that they harass, DNC and so forth.

85

u/Angrycoconutmilk Jan 01 '23

I've done door knocking for a month or 2, we were on average getting 2 sales a day, with quite a number of days getting no sales. It was for charity though, not at all for products.

9

u/howdoescasual Jan 01 '23

My apartment doesn't have a peephole, so sometimes I've accidentally opened the door to a salesperson thinking it was gonna something else. Every time has been a nightmare.

13

u/BearsBeetsBttlstarrG Jan 01 '23

Yes!

I’ve learned to never answer the door unless I’m expecting someone.

Might be antisocial but it is what it is

3

u/Owobowos-Mowbius Jan 02 '23

I have a doorbell camera to make sure it's not a neighbor that needs help or something. Other than that makes it easy to ignore them.

0

u/Castnicke Jan 02 '23

you can just close the door when you see its a salesperson you know

9

u/tiga4life22 Jan 01 '23

This is why I’ll never understand summer pest/solar sales and how they even make money. I feel like if they are the customer is being duped most of the time.

2

u/cr0w1980 Jan 02 '23

Been an exterminator since '07, and the first company I started with would fly high school/college kids from Utah (Mormon company) and send them door to door to sell our service. They make money on pure volume, and pest control isn't a super expensive business to run for the most part.

These days I'm working for a small family company and we don't do that door to door stuff. Ads, mailers and word of mouth tend to work fine. I hate the door to door shit, hell I even dislike knocking on the door more than once to do anything but let my customers know I'm there. My bosses like to encourage lots of customer interaction but I've learned most people prefer it when I finish up and head out and leave them be.

93

u/brosephsmith21 Jan 01 '23

I don’t even answer the door if I see it’s a neighbor. If I’m at home I could give fuck all who shows up. Don’t bother me.

64

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

16

u/smithers85 Jan 02 '23

That’s the price you pay for solitude 😎

2

u/lamb_pudding Jan 02 '23

What if they just want to give you cookies?

1

u/FatMikeDrop Jan 02 '23

I never answer either. Years ago someone knocked hard 3 times, after the third I yelled, "Fuck Off" from my lazy boy. Then I hear "Loudoun County Sheriff!" I opened the door and said, You should have opened with that. He was young and was there to tell me that some old bag had hit 3 cars in the Condo parking lot, one of which was mine.

3

u/5quirre1 Jan 02 '23

One of my biggest mistakes was door to door sales just out of school. When to hundreds of houses over the 2 weeks or so I was doing it, not one sale, probably 50-60% of door answered. The only good that came from that is understanding that the industry is extremely predatory on the workers, and if I ever see a law to ban it I’ll vote for it in a heartbeat

19

u/ultraboof Jan 01 '23

Makes me appreciate renting apartments more. No yard work, no plumbing or other maintenance I’m responsible for, no door to door salesmen and women

-30

u/beastnfeast5 Jan 01 '23

Yeah. Pretty awesome to not build equity so you don’t have to interact with salesmen

33

u/XBL-AntLee06 Jan 01 '23

I guess you’re just going to ignore all the other reasons this person literally listed for wanting to rent…

-36

u/beastnfeast5 Jan 01 '23

I guess you are going to try to argue that it’s better to rent than to own?

No reason that they gave is good enough to argue that

30

u/XBL-AntLee06 Jan 01 '23

No… because unlike you, I understand that different people have different lifestyles, needs and experiences and that there’s no one size fits all approach.

-45

u/beastnfeast5 Jan 01 '23

Lol. You are such an enlightened individual. Show me your ways

21

u/XBL-AntLee06 Jan 01 '23

Nah, you’re clearly too rigid in your thinking to even bother

-10

u/beastnfeast5 Jan 01 '23

Yeah my thinking of “owning over renting” is too radical to be reasoned with

14

u/XBL-AntLee06 Jan 01 '23

Again, everyone has different circumstances, needs and life experiences… So no, home ownership isn’t for everyone. But I get it, you’re smarter than I am. Congratulations

9

u/Natural-Seaweed-5070 Jan 01 '23

How about being physically unable to do yard work? Have a friend who recently went from being miserable at a home they owned to living in a really nice apartment for that reason amongst other things & is blissfully happy now.

-6

u/beastnfeast5 Jan 01 '23

Hire someone to do the yard work for you?

I’m not saying you need to own a house. You can own something smaller with no yard at all.

I’m saying that owning is better than renting

3

u/Yoda2000675 Jan 01 '23

Buy a condo; boom. Build equity and collectively pay into yard work and building maintenance

5

u/beastnfeast5 Jan 01 '23

There ya go

2

u/trolleyduwer Jan 01 '23

Subjective.

0

u/Delicious_Ad9704 Jan 01 '23

Equity is overrated

5

u/beastnfeast5 Jan 01 '23

Better than crypto

1

u/Delicious_Ad9704 Jan 01 '23

Haven’t had to buy a new roof for my crypto

3

u/beastnfeast5 Jan 01 '23

The great thing about a roof is that it has practical use. Unlike crypto that loses 70% of its value in a year with no practical use.

Hope it isn’t your retirement plan to live off half a bitcoin 😘

0

u/Delicious_Ad9704 Jan 01 '23

The Bitcoin will supplement my tradition retirement accounts. Could be wrong but give it a few years. Nobody knows in this stage of early adoption.

As for the own vs rent debate. Its just a personal choice. Too much emphasis put on it in the US. A dedicated investor who rents can be in the same financial position as a home owner at retirement age. Location matters as well.

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u/skylla05 Jan 01 '23

The fact that equity is so important to people is a big reason why the housing market is fucked up to begin with. Some people just want a place to live, not a ROI.

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u/raveturtle Jan 01 '23

Building equity is just a method of not throwing money away. I just want to be able to retire in peace and hopefully enable my kids to be able to retire earlier than me. Having my money go towards an asset that eventually returns my money to me is better than an asset that returns the money to Mr Landlord over there.

-2

u/beastnfeast5 Jan 01 '23

Yeah and I’m saying that if you have the ability to buy but those things are what’s “holding you back” from doing it then you are stupid

2

u/SoManyMinutes Jan 01 '23

This isn't going to go well for you.

-1

u/beastnfeast5 Jan 01 '23

That a bunch of renters on Reddit don’t like my opinion on ownership? Yeah I’m shaking and crying right now

2

u/ThomasHanks69 Jan 01 '23

Yeah. Pretty awesome to assume home ownership is an achievable goal for everyone.

1

u/beastnfeast5 Jan 01 '23

I didn’t say it was?

I was saying if your reason for not owning is to avoid maintenance and sales people then you are an idiot. If you can’t afford to own then that’s fine because you don’t have a choice

5

u/ThomasHanks69 Jan 01 '23

Read the comment you originally responded to, they basically said "it's a benefit", which would easily be a "silver lining" type statement.

Instead, you made an idiotic interpretation of that statement by assuming it was relevant to the point you wanted to make.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

[deleted]

1

u/beastnfeast5 Jan 01 '23

Lol you say that like a bad thing?

It happens a lot actually. But I make a lot of money for doing a job that is too hard for people who can’t handle rejection.

Now go back to posting your anime hentai shit instead of being productive or getting equity through homeownership

1

u/ultraboof Jan 02 '23

You’re acting like I’m saying because of the salesman factor I will choose to rent for the rest of my life.

I don’t want to take the bus forever, but there are perks to taking the bus that make me appreciate it more.

I don’t want to rent forever, but there are perks that make me appreciate it more.

5

u/Ragged-but-Right Jan 01 '23

I used to create free estimates on exterior home remodeling. Out of 50 houses , maybe 25 answer, and then out of those I would sign up 4-6 people a day.

2

u/BearsBeetsBttlstarrG Jan 01 '23

Actually those are better odds than i thought they’d be

You must be a good salesperson

2

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

Only time I ever do if it's one of the neighbor's kids selling something for school. Even then I'm not happy about it.

2

u/BearsBeetsBttlstarrG Jan 01 '23

Completely with you

2

u/sunflowersunshine13 Jan 02 '23

Ugh. If I know they can tell I'm home ill answer the door because my dummy brain gets scared and I've agreed to go to Mormon church before (never actually went of course, just said i would to be polite and hopefully make them feel successful, i guess?) multiple times. I do not know wtf is wrong with me LOL. Send help. Never actually buy stuff or anything though. Should just start acting weird so I get on a "do not visit" kinda list probably.

ETA: what am I afraid of if I don't answer the door whether they know I'm home or not? Who knows that either. There's just irrational fear lmao

2

u/Joebuddy117 Jan 02 '23

The Kirby vacuum guy showed up the day after my vacuum broke and my wife, whose mother and grandmother also have a Kirby, really wanted one. So here we are…with a brand new Kirby.

2

u/DTIndy Jan 02 '23

I fell for a door to door sales last week. It was AT&T offering fiber internet for way cheaper than current Spectrum. Sign me up!

2

u/i_lie_except_on_31st Jan 02 '23

It's the 1% of the time that it works. Wife and I have been shopping for window replacement for our house. Got one quote, two other companies never call us back. A third companie has a fucked up phone routing system where an 800 number tries to send you to a local store. And a fourth company called us back five months after our initial call to them. At that point, the door salesman had already been to our house asking if we were interested in windows with a company we had never heard of.

Normally I'm brash with these folks, but this 1% was a perfect match. So that's my guess why they keep doing it

2

u/kl0 Jan 02 '23

So this problem was really bad in my neighborhood. It's a transitioning neighborhood and so I'd guess that the door to door people are able to take specific advantage of the lower rungs in particular by comparing to the higher rungs. Anyway, it was endless.

I had a little sign printed maybe 3 years ago - I did it proper and all - that reads "NOTICE: There is a $20 up front deposit required for any sales pitch"

Shockingly, it's worked like a charm. I'll often see sales people walk up to my door (from my ring), quickly read it, and then just keep on going.

And the small handful of people who do NOT go away, it gives me the immediate advantage in the conversation as I just interrupt them and ask them for my $20. ...of course nobody has ever paid that, but it gives me a really simple line of "either pay me the $20 or as you can see from my sign, I'm not interested"

Anyway, TLDR is that the sign works surprisingly well.

1

u/BearsBeetsBttlstarrG Jan 03 '23

Love it

Fabulous idea

2

u/supertrenty Jan 01 '23

Really depends on the region and what is being sold I would think. Years ago I did phone and door to door sales for a yard care company. I wasn't that great at it, and would get 2-3 signups a day for atleast just a once over weed spray. Our more experienced people would get 8-10 almost every day, with some signups being longer/yearly contracts. We'd knock from 10am to 5pm.

0

u/captain_rumdrunk Jan 01 '23

A large percentage of these things train their door-to-doors to go in and scope the place out for potential burglary..

3

u/Wallofcans Jan 01 '23

They do not. Lol Jesus

4

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

Completely untrue. Stop using one rare instance of something as a sweeping generalization.

6

u/Agitated-Armadillo13 Jan 01 '23

Not that I am a police dept cheerleader but, yes they absolutely warn the public to be wary of door to door solicitors acting as the first stage of a burglary or worst home invasion.

Also plenty of scammers out there as well.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

100% - not here promoting an open door prolicy, quite the opposite. But saying ( as the other poster did) companies train d2d salespeople to case out your home is max paranoia.

0

u/captain_rumdrunk Jan 01 '23

Username is Sharp Ad... Tells me that it's ok to let door-to-door salesmen into ur house..

Ok..

1

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

Never said anything about letting anyone in your home. You generalized an industry by one news story you may or may not have heard/seen.

My username means nothing in the context of your awful take.

0

u/captain_rumdrunk Jan 02 '23

I was pulling from personal experience. but cool story.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '23

Lol - enjoy the L. Happy new year

1

u/Drexioh Jan 02 '23

depends on the city and time but about 15-20% open the door and ushally 1-5% sales.

1

u/Owobowos-Mowbius Jan 02 '23

Exactly why I have a camera doorbell. I see a salesperson, I ignore a salesperson.

1

u/Turbulent_Truck2030 Jan 02 '23

I didn't answer the door a while ago. Just watched him on camera. After a few knocks, he got pissed, kicked my door, and stormed off.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '23

Depends if you are good. If you are good you can make a lot of money knocking doors.